


the sacrament of reconciliation

by kernsing



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Ben Parker Dies, Compulsions, Confessions, Doubt, Gen, Intrusive Thoughts, Mental Illness, Moral OCD, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Peter Parker-centric, Real Event OCD, Reassurance-Seeking, Rumination, bc i love them, discussions on morality, he’s the major character death, i also love MJ and Ned but i’m not tagging them because they are in about 4 percent of the fic, scrupulosity, the Irondad is like 12 percent of the fic but when it’s there it’s there, there’s a hopeful ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 19:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30144615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kernsing/pseuds/kernsing
Summary: It’s his fault. It’s his fault. He knows it in his bones with something far more certain than certainty, a weight in his heart that is shame, shame, shame.Ben dies.Peter could have stopped it.It’s his fault.You know the saying. With great power comes great responsibility.(Or: in which Peter Parker struggles with scrupulosity and real event OCD after Ben’s death.)
Relationships: Ben Parker & Peter Parker, May Parker & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 17
Kudos: 47





	the sacrament of reconciliation

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [the secrets we keep](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23827069) by [paperowl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperowl/pseuds/paperowl). 



> I’ve had vague ideas about writing a fic featuring Peter and scrupulosity issues for a while now, but I could never pin down the specifics of it until reading paperowl’s _the secrets we keep_ , which is wholly responsible for this fic’s focus on Ben’s death and partially responsible for Peter’s confession compulsion (the other part is me projecting). It’s also a lovely dose of hurt/comfort and Irondad. I recommend checking out the entire series the fic is part of, the _Bad Things Happen Bingo_.
> 
> I’ve never been officially diagnosed with OCD (…maybe? read: navigating the American mental health system confounds me). This fic is, however, drawn heavily from my own life. It’s informally dedicated to my mom, who I confessed many sins to during middle and high school, and who, after some initial turbulence, believed me when I said I thought I had a mental illness. 
> 
> A small additional warning: there are a few sentences that express exhaustion with existence. Please take care of yourself if this makes you uncomfortable.

_When Peter becomes his and May’s responsibility, Ben worries about many things, but heavy among them weighs the challenge of teaching a child to be kind and ethical. He tries to lead by example, live out his values of compassion and justice, and walk a balanced road between being forgiving and stern._

_He has no idea what he’s doing. So many times, Ben gives reprimands and commendations alike with a horrible inadequacy seeping into his heart._

_Despite everything, Peter turns out polite and sweet. In fact, sometimes Peter gets a little_ too _preoccupied with being a good kid. He worries that if he studies with other people he’ll be cheating, somehow. He counts his change to make sure he’s not stealing from the cashier, exasperating Ben and May and the other customers in line to no end. Once, he confessed in tears to stealing a candy bar from the local corner store before putting it back when they went again a week later, three years after the fact._

_It’s strange and a little concerning, but not unmanageable. May agrees. Peter’s a neurotic kid, but he’s not sad. His smiles are bright and plenty; he talks freely about his interests and his friend whenever he can. And however much Ben wants Peter to grow up kind and good, he wants his kid to be loved and happy a thousand times over. It’s selfish, maybe, but it’s the way he feels. So while Peter bounces around the kitchen and chitters about his upcoming field trip to Oscorp, Ben can only be content._

_Peter’s happy, so Ben’s happy too._

* * *

Ben dies on a cold winter evening.

During the two or so weeks before, Peter is angry and scared with his newfound powers. He seems to break almost everything he touches: pencils, doorknobs, light switches, faucet handles. He hears scuffling at night, neighbors arguing streets away, and dogs barking across half the city. He keeps track of the distant screams that wake him from his sleep, a sticky note with tally marks affixed upon his bedpost.

One night, he follows the noises and stops a mugging three blocks from his home. He’s not sure if he breaks the assailant’s wrist or not when he wrenches the knife away. Still shaking with excess adrenaline as he crawls into bed, Peter tries to forget the cry of pain and crack of bones that perhaps only he heard. Tries even harder to not wonder about what could have happened had he not been there. The terrified woman who’d cried and cried for help alone and bleeding out in the dark alleyway. All the sounds he’s ignored. Tally marks on his sticky note.

He doesn’t sleep that night.

Peter doesn’t know what to do. He’s anxious. He’s afraid. Inexplicably, he’s mad, mad at nothing and everything, at the world, at himself.

These are the facts that will cross Peter’s mind again and again, a dizzy spiral of rumination that never ends: Peter is angry. His temper is always short these days. It’s late when he starts a petty argument with Ben and May and storms off outside to blow off some steam. It doesn’t help. The December city night is loud and bright and freezing, and his mood sours even further. He makes his way to the nearest convenience store, but the warmth is offset by the buzz and flicker of fluorescent lights.

He kicks a display, gets yelled at by the cashier, yells back. Before he can finish his tirade, a man shoves him aside and points a gun at the cashier. Peter, for fear or unrighteous anger, doesn’t stop it, even though he can, even though it would be so easy to wrest the gun from the robber’s hand and hit him over the head. So easy, easy, easy. The robber takes the money and runs.

The cashier stumbles after him, to the entrance of the store, yelling, “Stop! Thief!” and Peter follows like a puppet possessed.

The next few seconds will sear themselves into his brain. Peter sees Ben walking down the sidewalk. He is undoubtedly there to find Peter. Ben startles at the sight of the robber running toward him. Peter won’t ever be able to tell if he notices the gun in that moment. The thief attempts to shoulder past him, but Ben grasps him and tries to tackle him to the ground. There’s a gunshot. The robber gets away.

After that, his memory is a blur yet again. Someone else calls 911 before he thinks of it, but it’s not like that would have done much good. Ben dies with a bullet in his head while Peter cries uselessly.

It’s his fault. It’s his fault. He knows it in his bones with something far more certain than certainty, a weight in his heart that is shame, shame, shame.

Ben dies.

Peter could have stopped it.

It’s his fault.

* * *

_May is living with a murderer._

Peter is nauseous with the thought.

It’s a month after the night Ben died, and Peter can think of nothing but his guilt.

_May is living with a murderer._

Even when it’s not at the forefront of his mind, it churns in the background, in his gut, the knowledge, the death he carries, the sin. Every single minute of every single day, it is heavy; it is there.

_May is living with a murderer. She deserves to know._

He lives in a fog that obscures all but his guilt. Time and space have no more meaning. The dusks and dawns pass all the same to him.

_May is living with a murderer._

He trudges through school with blank eyes and distant ears. Ned sticks to his side and tries to talk to him, but Peter hears only his own head.

_May is living with a murderer._

Nobody else pays him much mind except to cast him a pitying look for his uncle, for the grief that’s buried deep inside himself like ice beneath the surface of a faraway moon. He doesn’t deserve to mourn. He can’t remember how long he tried, if he ever did, those first few days or weeks. He can’t remember if the guilt conquered his head the night of Ben’s death or during the funeral or after.

_May is living with a murderer. She deserves to know._

Sometimes, when Peter is aware enough to notice he is alone at home, he makes an active effort to put aside the noise in his head. He directs his focus to the sounds around him, beyond him, past his street and into the city. Peter puts on his red hoodie, his goggles, his gloves with the artificial spider silk, and he goes outside. [He does it because he can; therefore, he should.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25975573)

It’s duty. But he finds that it is much more than that, too. There’s a certain thrill in the swing, in the smile of someone he helps.

It does nothing to assuage his mind, to silence the voice that calls him monster.

He never stays out long before he goes back to where it happened, to sit there and replay the events of that night in his mind, again and again and again.

_May is living with a murderer. She deserves to know._

Peter tries to use reason to find the chinks in the armor of this overwhelming fear. To spotlight its illogic, destroy it with rationality. If he is really is a murderer, he asks it, why doesn’t he turn himself in to the police?

_The police?_ it scoffs. _They only care about legalities, and sometimes not even that. In any case, the law is not morality. The state would not prosecute your sin of omission; of course there is no point in turning yourself in. May is living with a murderer. She deserves to know._

Would May herself care? She wouldn’t judge him by such a standard. It’s too harsh, to condemn all witnesses of criminals guilty of even future crimes those criminals commit.

_Not all witnesses. Only those who are able to intervene and refuse._

That’s still too harsh, he says, and he tries to set it down, away and done with.

But it only comes back louder. _Is it really?_ it asks. _Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?_ It shouts with such force that Peter begins to doubt, and the doubt drives him on, desperate to find the thought that will soothe him, for sure, forever.

He attempts a different route. _Only those who are able to intervene and refuse._ He refused to intervene, yes. But was he able? He was a fourteen-year-old kid. No reasonable person would expect a fourteen-year-old kid to prevent a theft, never mind a murder, surely.

_You do fine every night you go out swinging, a few weeks older than what you were. You know, every time you go over your memories of that night, that you could have stopped the thief, right there in the store. You are making excuses._

_May is living with a murderer. She deserves to know._

But he’s helping people now. If he tells her about his powers, she might realize that he’s Spider-Man and try to stop him. Or, if he tells her about his powers, she might realize that he really is a murderer and turn him out on the streets, and he’d have no more time to help anyone.

_You are making more excuses. May is living with a murderer. You do not need to tell her about your powers to tell her this, but if you did, it would make no difference. She deserves to decide if she wants to keep you around or not. It’s selfish of you to hide this from her._

It goes in for the coup de grâce: _Not only selfish, but evil, evil, evil._

Peter swallows down nausea at the thought. He’s still sick with it for weeks.

It is unbearable to think that he is doing something evil when doing what is right is so unspeakably important.

Peter breaks down one tired evening late in January as they’re finishing dinner. He starts crying and hiccuping incoherent words between sobs. May gently guides him to a seat on their fraying couch.

He tugs his knees between his hands and eventually he manages to tell her most of the story. He keeps his powers secret still and gets frustrated when she insists that it wasn’t possible for him to stop the man, that it wasn’t his responsibility anyway, that she’s so, so glad Peter’s healthy and safe and alive.

“You don’t get it, May,” Peter says, voice breaking, fresh tears pricking at the edges of his eyes. He might have to tell her about Spider-Man. “I really could have stopped him before. And because I didn’t, Ben died.”

May’s own eyes are shining. She takes a steadying breath. “Peter, baby. That night, I was the one who asked Ben to go out and look for you. I could have waited until you’d have come home, like all the other times, but I didn’t. And because I didn’t, Ben died.”

Peter startles. “That’s not the same. You didn’t—didn’t let anyone do anything bad—”

“But the consequences are the same, are they not? In the end, Ben isn’t here. And by your standards, it’s both our faults—or else you’d only be guilty of petty theft.”

“But—”

“Peter,” May says, and something in her voice, so soft and clear and light, makes him look up at her. “I don’t think you’re being fair to yourself. But even if you were, even if B—even if it really was your fault, I’d forgive you.”

Peter blinks at her, wordless. He is suddenly so light and airy that it is almost dizzying.

May gently takes one of his hands in hers. “Your uncle believed in mercy, in forgiveness, in charity. So do I.”

May leans in to hug Peter, and he lets her. After a moment, he wraps his arms around her, careful with his strength but tight all the same. He’s crying again, but now it’s from an overflow of pure, unbridled relief. The all-consuming guilt is gone, and he is shaking with unweight. She doesn’t hate him. She doesn’t hate him. He is sure, he is sure, he is sure.

Peter doesn’t even feel this light on the peak of a swing.

He makes it through the end of the school year without any other major mental breakdowns, and he spends his summer addicted to the rush of flinging himself from skyscraper to skyscraper. He’s not happy very often—he has a parent to mourn—but he’s not burdened with constant guilt, either.

And it’s not like he’s _never_ happy. When Tony Stark comes to ask him for help late June, he carries the sun in his eyes and the stars in his heart for weeks.

* * *

Five days after Homecoming, after May finds out, after the yelling and the fretting and the resignation, it comes back.

Peter is at lunch with MJ and Ned, eating the extra slice of pizza May packed for him and worrying faintly about the impact of his appetite on their finances.

A passing thought rings his attention. _Maybe May’s changed her mind about forgiving you, especially now that she knows you’re Spider-Man._

She’d say something about it, he thinks back.

It grows louder. _Maybe she’s changed her mind. Maybe she only ever said she forgave you in the first place because she felt obligated to take care of you. You should have made it clear that she had no such duty. How could you have overlooked this?_

“Hey, Peter?” says Ned. “Please back me up here. MJ should join our Saturday Rebels season three watch parties.”

MJ flips a page of a book. “Fanboys.”

“Peter?” says Ned.

Peter glances up and plasters a flimsy grin on his face. “Oh yeah, definitely.” He averts his eyes away again, lost in his head.

“You okay, man? You’ve been staring at that slice of pizza for a while.”

“I’m fine,” says Peter automatically. “Just not that hungry right now.” He looks back at them and sees that they’re both looking at him. “Really. Mrs. Henderson’s pop quiz last period didn’t help my appetite. I, uh, wasn’t caught up on the reading.”

“Oh, yeah.” Ned cringes, because Peter wasn’t exactly lying.

“I think I wanted to die, and I actually finished the last chapter,” MJ agrees. Neither she nor Ned take their eyes off Peter, though. MJ sets her novel down. “You know what? I’ll be there for your Star Wars show on Saturday. One of you text me the details.”

“Really? Yes!” Ned punches the air. “We usually go to my house. I’ll get you my address. Episodes start at 8:30 PM, and Peter’s usually there thirty minutes beforehand.”

MJ clears her throat, and Ned scratches the back of his neck. “I’ll be sure to include the time in the text, too,” he says.

“Thank you. Now,” says MJ, “both of you better be there this week. I won’t know what’s going on in the show, and I’ll need a minimum of two nerds to explain it to me.”

Ned laughs and says, “Yeah, we’ve got you. We’ve both been dying to see the new season since the trailer with Thrawn was dropped. Right, Peter?”

“Mmhmm.” Peter nods, and drifts away for the rest of the conversation.

He makes his way through the school day and the next, and he does go to Ned’s two days later, but he is in a constant daze. He finds himself in the same painful loop he was in ten months ago. Barely paying attention in school. Cycling through his memories of that day, over and over again. Poring over every last detail, from the chill of the air to the flicker of the streetlamps. Wondering if there truly was nothing he could have done, in those moments as he watched the thief run toward Ben, to stop it.

_She’s changed her mind. She’s changed her mind. May is living with a murderer._

His back aches. His head is never quiet. At night, in bed, he wraps his arms around himself and cries, wondering if he’ll be alone on the streets the next day. Physically sick with the nauseating possibility that it would be justified, because May is living with a murderer.

_It could be true. It could be true. What does it say about yourself when you aren’t sure if you’re a killer or not?_

_The uncertainty alone condemns you._

_May is living with a murderer. May is living with a murderer. You must confess, confess, confess—_

This is _stupid_! he yells at his head. He wouldn’t be this uncharitable to a stranger. He holds no one else up to this impossible standard. _May already knows._

It doesn’t listen. _You must tell her again, to be sure, sure, sure. May is living with a murderer. She’s changed her mind. She hates you. She’s right to hate you. It could be true. It could be true._

_What does it say?_

_The uncertainty alone._

_You must confess—_

It happens in much the same way. After all, Peter and May only really see each other after work and after school. His words tumble out between tears, again. He talks about Ben, again, talks like he is reaching down his throat to grasp at his words and tear them from his stomach, covered in acid and blood.

May purses her lips as she combs her fingers through his hair. “Honey, we’ve been over this.”

Peter turns away from her. “I know. But then—you found out about Spider-Man, and—what if you changed your mind? What if you don’t want me around anymore? What if—in that moment, outside the store—I, I really could have done something to stop it?”

“Peter—”

“—It’s just—did he see the gun? What if he didn’t? What if he never would have tried to stop the robber if he’d knew, what if I could have, I could have said something—”

“—Peter.” The soft lilt of May’s voice commands Peter’s attention. “Nothing would have stopped you from saving Ben if you could have. If that weren’t true, then you wouldn’t—you wouldn’t care that—that Ben had—is gone now. And you do—you do care. I know you do.

“Some things happen to fast for any of us to think or do anything. Even if you’re Spider-Man, you’re still only one person.” May brushes some of his hair away from his eyes. “And I could never not want you around anymore. No matter what. I swear, Peter.”

May takes him into her arms, and Peter crumples into her embrace. He lets her rock him back and forth, clings to the certainty of her words. He imprints them into his mind, repeating her reassurance to himself over and over, relief, relief, relief. Hugs the feeling close to his chest, convinces himself that it is his forever, because it has to be, it has to be.

He doesn’t know how much longer he can stand to be in his own head while it accuses him of murder, silence, evil.

May pulls away from him and reaches up to wipe his tears. Peter sees her own face glistening, remembers the tremble in her voice, and he starts to cry again. “I’m sorry, I brought it up again and I shouldn’t have, I’m sorry, I thought I had to.”

“Peter, I—that’s not something you should apologize for. I don’t want you to think you can’t ever talk to me about anything.” May rubs his back. “You didn’t have to, though. I promise, this is not something you need to worry about.”

Peter covers his face. “I—I know. Really. I just. I felt so guilty, all the time, and then I had—had to say something. It—it felt like I had to.”

May furrows her brow. “Baby. Do you want to talk to someone about this? I mean, a professional?”

Peter sits up straight. “No, no, I don’t need to, May.” It’s too expensive, he doesn’t say.

Besides, he’s fine now, right? It’s over. It’s over. It has to be.

“Are you sure?” May purses her lips. “If you’re worried about the cost, don’t. I’ll make it work. Especially since this could really help you.”

He’s fine. It’s over. “I really think I’m good, May,” he says carefully, so there is no tremor to his voice.

“You’ll consider it, at least?”

“Maybe,” he says.

He’s fine.

He has to be.

* * *

It’s like a dam breaks, after that. Over the course of the next months, it comes again, and again, and again. Each time, the offending thought becomes a little more irrational, and the period of relief grows a little bit shorter, until Peter finds himself spending the vast majority of his days trapped in miserable, vicious cycles of thought.

It makes its first reappearance in late December, days before the new year.

_What if you let Ben die because you never loved him?_

Peter spends three weeks in a haze, barely speaking. Of course he loved Ben, adored him. Of course, of course, of course. He knows this more than he knows anything else.

_Do you?_

_How could you doubt it if it were true?_

He gives in and asks, again.

A month passes.

_Was it bad when you ignored Flash calling Ned a name two days ago?_

Objectively, being complicit in murder is worse than hurting a friend. But Peter is just as shaken by these thoughts, just as nauseated by the possibility. And when he feels just as guilty, just as horrified, just as sick—it’s easy to believe what his brain is screaming at him hour after hour, day after day.

In the end, it’s the same fear. Maybe he’s done something bad. Maybe he’s done something wrong. Maybe he’s evil, evil, evil. It doesn’t matter that it’s irrational. It doesn’t matter that they’ve ignored Flash plenty of times before. It doesn’t matter that his friendship with Ned is unshakeable.

It’s the same worry, the same doubt. The same relief, when he gets it out, out, out. Tears it from his head, off his skin, through his mouth. Again, again, again.

It returns in days.

_Did you miss something when you were out as Spider-Man?_

It follows him through his home, through his school, through his city, everywhere he goes, touching everything he sees, hears, does. He sits on a rooftop and sobs, the first time he realizes it’s followed him to Spider-Man, to his duty, to the streets of the neighborhood he loves. _Check the alleyway again. And again. And again. Was it empty? Was it really?_ Tony finds him there, and Peter’s too distraught to answer any of his questions.

It snags his mind in its vise-like grip, refuses to let go as it whispers for him to check, again, ask, again, confess, again, until he is sure, sure, sure.

* * *

Peter’s not stupid.

He knows he has a problem by the time he’s asking Ned if he hates him. He has a name for his problem, even. It’s not that hard to find, when googling variations on “[need to confess](https://psychcentral.com/blog/ocd-reflections/2016/04/confessions-and-ocd)” eventually leads him to [article](https://www.popsugar.com/fitness/what-it-like-to-live-with-confession-compulsion-ocd-47432964/) [after](https://butyoulookgreat.com/2018/01/29/ocd-and-the-need-to-confess-things/) [article](https://www.sheppardpratt.org/news-views/story/moral-scrupulosity-ocd-part-two/) [on](https://adaa.org/learn-from-us/from-the-experts/blog-posts/consumer/reality-real-life-ocd) [OCD](http://www.ocdspecialists.com/real-event-ocd/).

(That wasn’t really true—the part about it not being hard to find. Peter can see his life through this lens now, catches the thousands of tiny details that point this way. But it’s difficult to recognize something for what it is when nobody talks about it.)

It’s not enough to have a name. It eats up even this, the knowledge of itself. The relief is short-lived. It gives no lasting certainty, demands a constant reassessment, again, again, again. Peter starts to wonder if he really has a problem, if he’s not just lying to himself, if he’s trying to excuse the wrongs he’s committed. It twists him into miserable knots—he has a problem and he deserves help, _but what if you don’t,_ but he knows he does, _but what if that’s not true._

Peter’s not stupid. A part of him always knows that his worries are overblown. Always knows that he doesn’t need to constantly run over his memories or ask for reassurance or confess all of his possible past misdeeds to be a good person.

But he’s sick. So he does.

* * *

Being good is important to Peter.

It is the most important thing, even. More than honor. More than joy. More than love. The mandate to do what is right exceeds them all.

Peter can’t say how deep this feeling runs in him, doesn’t know when it began. It could have begun when he was four, asking May about her job and listening with rapt attention about what it means to help other people. It could have begun when he was seven, and he overfed his pet fish on a whim, and Ben lectured him on power and responsibility. It could have begun later that same year with the first press conference of Stark Industries’s new era, Tony’s words on accountability etching a deep impression in Peter’s mind. In some ways it feels like it began with all of those things; in some ways it feels like it has always been with him.

It does not hang above his head like a sword on a rope, for goodness is kind and forgiving in its severity. Instead, it is there in his bones, in the stardust of every atom of his body.

Being good is important to Peter. It is duty. It is responsibility. If Peter were more inclined to religiosity, he would call it something holy.

But the nature of OCD is so often this: it targets the most sacred parts of your being, twists them into instruments of suffering. It warps his most cherished devotion into daggers of shame and guilt and fear that stab into his heart until there’s nothing left to bleed.

When he doesn’t feel guilty, when he doesn’t feel numb, Peter is angry. He hates this disease that has taken his life from him, that has infested his soul like kudzu, that has attacked his friendship, his family, his will to do what is right. He hates the guilt, the numbness, the needless suffering. He burns himself out with this fury, hot tears and late nights, his mind churning all the while in the background, caught on whatever stupid thought that has managed to snag his attention this time. The anger dissipates. The thought stays.

Being good is important to Peter. It is not honor. It is not joy. It is not love. But it intersects with them all the same; to be good is to fulfill what the sum of all hearts desire, and many desire honor and joy and love.

Being good is important to Peter. It means he strives to show compassion to everyone, including himself. To be as patient and understanding of his own needs and wants as he is with those of others. To value his own wellbeing and comfort and happiness, because he is one of the sum of all hearts, and to be good is to give to all what he can.

Being good is important to Peter.

He can’t remember what it was like the last time he was happy.

* * *

He makes Tony laugh with a dumb joke in the lab one summer day almost a year after the man first showed up at his apartment. By now, he’s made Tony laugh with lots of dumb jokes. He doesn’t know why this one in particular draws the eyes of the monster in his head.

_He doesn’t know._

He won’t remember the joke later. Only the thoughts that follow.

_He deserves to know that you’re a murderer._

He’s so tired of this. The doubt. The nausea. The double knowledge that he’s evil and that he’s not evil. The feeling that he’s going insane.

_You have to tell him. You have to tell him._

Something must show on his face because Tony’s smiling expression turns concerned, and he asks, “Peter? You okay there, buddy?”

“Sorry, I just—I—” Peter sucks in a breath. Enough. He can’t do this on his own anymore. His voice trembles as he says, “Did you know I killed and didn’t kill my uncle?”

Tony drops the tool he was holding with a clatter. “Peter?”

“I killed him. And I didn’t kill him.”

In the corner of his eye, Peter sees Tony turn to face him. “Tell me what you mean.”

“I mean I had a chance—I had a duty to stop his murderer for something else before I knew he was going to kill him. And I didn’t. So Ben died. So that means I killed him. But there’s no way I could have known his would-be murderer would do that. So that means I didn’t.”

“You didn’t,” Tony echoes as he guides Peter to sit on the couch in the lab.

“I know I didn’t kill him. But I don’t know.”

“Guilt isn’t always rational. You shouldn’t let it eat you up.”

“But I already have!” Down come the tears. He doesn’t understand how he hasn’t cried them all out yet. “I’ve asked May twice about Ben’s death already. And I asked her if she remembered if I mourned, if I loved Ben. Of course I loved Ben. And now I’m telling you, because my head is convinced I’m doing something wrong if I don’t. What does it say that I think I might be a murderer? Don’t you deserve to know that the person you’re talking to could have—could have—” Peter scratches at his hair before deflating. “I’m so tired of living like this. I don’t want to live like this.”

Tony holds Peter close, and Peter cries all over his shirt as Tony rocks him back and forth.

“I’m not sure what to say, Peter. I don’t want you to suffer like this either. You don’t deserve it.”

_Don’t I?_ He ignores the thought and takes in a breath. “I need help.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“I think…I think I need to see someone professional. And I know it costs money, but since you pay me for the internship, you can take it out of—”

“—Peter,” says Tony, “you have ended up in the Tower’s medbay far too many times to not know that you get free healthcare here. It’s what you deserve, for acting as Spider-Man, for working at SI, for being a person with basic rights.”

Peter blinks. “That covers mental health too?”

“Mental health is integral to your wellbeing. Of course. I’m sorry I didn’t make that clear earlier.” Tony combs his hand through Peter’s hair and hesitates before his next words. “And you know, I’d—I’d do anything for you. Not because of what Spider-Man does, or because you work for the company, or because it’s plain decent. But because—for you.”

Peter sniffs. “Yeah, I know. You’re letting me use you as a snot pillow right now.”

Tony laughs, and Peter can’t help but give a small smile.

There’s relief now too, but it’s of a different sort. It’s less intense, more stable. Something deeper, longer-lasting.

He’s going to get help.

* * *

He doesn’t get better right away. And when he does get better, it doesn’t always last.

He has a chronic illness. It will be with him for life, but he will also have the tools and support to handle it. Peter’s on medication now, and he goes to therapy once a week. He’s armed with knowledge about how the loops in his head work, how his compulsions reinforce his thoughts, how it can make him doubt even this. Certainty is a red herring—nothing will ever be enough for his mind to be sure. He can learn to be comfortable with uncertainty instead. Even if it means he could be doing something wrong. Because goodness is kind and forgiving in its severity, and caring for himself is part of caring for all.

It’s hard. In the beginning, the wave of anxiety that accompanies sitting through his thoughts seems almost insurmountable. But as he pushes through them, he finds that the wave becomes less and less intense the longer he rides it out.

Tony and May learn to recognize the warning signs, to not blindly accommodate his reassurance-seeking and confession compulsions. Peter also confides in Ned and MJ about his mental illness, and they’re understanding.

He’s going to get through this.

Eight months later, in the middle of laughing at something Ned says, Peter realizes that he’s happy again.

And he thinks, somewhere, if Ben knew that, then he’d be happy too. 

**Author's Note:**

> The line in the beginning about Peter’s fear of stealing was inspired by [this blog post](http://ocdlifestyle.blogspot.com/2017/06/reach-for-your-dreams-ocd-or-not.html). 
> 
> It took me forever to find out SWR season three’s air time. I should have just checked the trailer descriptions. In any case, thank you, [Sean Keane](https://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/star-wars-rebels-s3-episode-1-recap-holocrons-fate-article-1.2814075). 
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
